


Overlap

by orphan_account



Category: Euphoria (TV 2019)
Genre: Abusive Relationships, And Salt The Earth Behind You, Cassie and Maddy both deserve better, Cuddling & Snuggling, F/F, F/M, Friends to Lovers, Friendship, Kinda, Pillow Talk, Post And Salt The Earth Behind You, Pre-Canon, Unhealthy Relationships, post 1x08, talk about abortion, they're also both dealing with some shit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-04
Updated: 2019-09-06
Packaged: 2020-10-09 23:36:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,945
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20518316
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: "Maddy never tells anyone about these moments, when Cassie’s arms find themselves around her waist and her mouth finds Cassie’s lips and they slip beneath the covers and just hold each other and kiss each other and watch each other like they’re the only things that exist in this world. Partially because of those labels that, even now, after all this time, they’ve yet to shed, because they’d never understand something about two people they don’t understand. But mostly because Maddy doesn’t quite know what this is. Not really.". . .Cassie and Maddy have a relationship that they can't define, but that's okay. Definitions were never really their thing anyway.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This chapter's told from Cassie's perspective, the next will be from Maddy's.  
Also, the Maddy/Nate isn't extremely graphic, but it will be touched upon a few times throughout so please be careful and take care of yourselves.

She first meets Maddy in the sixth grade, when she gets her period in the middle of social studies and realizes she doesn’t have any pads.  
She’s still new to school, doesn’t have any friends, so she doesn’t expect anyone to answer when she timidly calls out, "Excuse me? Does anyone have any pads?"  
There's some giggles, some cracks about sticking some tissue down there, and then the sound of the steel door slamming. Cassie sits there, tears beginning to pool in her eyes, and starts to ball a large wad of toilet paper in her hands when someone’s hand rises above the door of the stall beside her, a thin, green pad clenched around her fingers.  
"Will this do?"  
Cassie sniffles and shakily reaches up and wraps her hands around the pad, her fingers touching the other girl’s for just a second. "Yeah. Thanks."  
She and the girl beside her leave their stalls at the same time. They’re the same height, but the girl stands with a sort of confidence, walks with a sort of purpose, and with the simple yet lush eye makeup adorning her face, she looks sorely out of place in a rundown middle school bathroom.  
"My name’s Cassie", Cassie says quietly as they’re washing their hands at the sink.  
Maddy smiles into the mirror. She’s watching herself, but her eyes dart to Cassie. "Maddy Perez", the girl says, like she’s somebody famous, and Cassie wonders what that would be like.  
Horrible, she decides immediately. She doesn’t want anyone looking at her. Not ever.  
"Thanks", she says again, and Maddy just shrugs, flicking the water off her fingers because the dryer’s broken again and there are never any paper towels. She adjusts the straps of her purse, then starts towards the door. "Are you new?"  
Cassie rushes after her, falling in line beside her just as they walk out the door. They meet the other girls at the front of the hall and take their places behind them, single file, feet firmly set in each square. "Yeah. My, uh, my dad got a new job."  
That’s what she tells everyone because it’s what her dad tells her. Her mom says it’s a little more complicated than that, but Cassie doesn’t mind. A new job sounds better and if that’s what her dad prefers…  
“I think he got fired from his last one”, she mutters.  
Maddy looks at her then, a bit weirdly. And then she’s smiling, a little harder, and saying, "Cool".  
"Cool", Cassie repeats, and they’ve arrived at the classroom. All at once, she feels like Alice, shrunk to just a fraction of herself and staring up into a world she’s no clue to navigate, just stumbling through the dark and the wild and the vicious creatures and hoping to make it home in one piece.  
And then, just like that, it’s all gone, because Maddy’s grabbed hold of her hand and dragged her to the front row. "You can sit with me", Maddy says before turning to face the board.  
Distractedly, Cassie thinks she’ll have to go back for her things, but Maddys already torn out a sheet of notebook paper and passed her a pen-"Don’t chew on it"- with little more than a spare glance.  
Mr. Little resumes his lesson, and Cassie settles into her seat and smiles.  
Years pass, they change schools, switch Taylor Lautner in for Tyler Posey, and, for all that’s happened, they’re still best friends. You wouldn’t think it, not from their hobbies and personalities, but their friendship was a weird one to begin with. It’s just evolved now, so to speak.  
Cassie’s pretty much the same, but she’s a cheerleader now. Years ago, she would’ve thought it impossible, just barely capable of ice-skating when what she really wanted was to sit amongst the crowd and watch other girls skate.  
But things are different now. In a way, she’s kinda famous, the way Maddy once was. Not by her own hand and certainly not at her liking but famous nonetheless. But people are already watching her, already know what she looks like under the mountains of clothes she used to wear. At least this way, she has some sort of control of it.  
And with cheerleading, it’s all about control; of your body, of your mind, of an audience, with all three interdependent on one another. With that control, it’s kinda stressful, but Cassie kinda likes the stress. It keeps her busy. And now that she and Chris are broken up, she finds herself needing it more and more.  
“Cass”, Maddy says, setting her phone down beside her where she’s lying on Cassie’s bed. “I mean this in the nicest way possible, but I think you need some dick.”  
“I don’t need any dick”, Cassie murmurs; she’s practicing their new routine, for the sixth time in the past hour. “I need to learn the new routine.”  
“It’s literally the same one from last week but with extra tumbles and a table top instead of an A Frame. What’s to learn?”  
Maddy’s mostly the same, too. A little meaner, maybe, and her boyfriend kinda sucks. But the same, underneath it all. “I miss Chris”, she says and aches from the weight of it. Because she does miss him. Despite what Lexie and Maddy say, it wasn’t all bad, really, it wasn't. Chris could be really sweet, when he wasn’t caught up in his own head and her past. She thinks of the time they walked in the park and he held her hand like he wasn’t afraid of someone seeing.  
She looks over her shoulder when Maddy doesn’t say anything. Maddy’s just watching her, the way she would when they were younger and Cassie would mess up her makeup. “You think I’m crazy”, Cassie says. It doesn’t hurt as much as it used to. The school counselor says she gets so attached to guys as a result of her dad bailing on them, so she guesses she has some issues.  
Maddy just shrugs and pushes herself into a seated position. “You think I’m crazy”, she retorts, and Cassie doesn’t have anything to say to that because even now, she can see the bruises, and she knows for a fact that Maddy’s going to see Nate later. She doesn’t hold it against her, though, same as Maddy doesn’t hold it against her for falling in love with every guy she’s dated. She likes to think it’s why they get along so well, but, truth be told, she’s done analyzing it.  
“Maybe we’re all crazy”, she eventually says and lies down beside Maddy. Maddy pats her on her thigh, then turns onto her side to look at her.  
“What are you thinking about”, Maddy asks her. Cassie raises her eyebrows, and Maddy just scoffs. “You’ve been Batman Brooding all week.” The humor fades from her voice, and her eyes go soft, like they only do in moments like this. “What’s up?”  
Cassie blinks, pulls her arm up to rest her head on it, and thinks. It’s not that hard. Just a few days ago, she was pregnant and had a boyfriend. Now she’s single. And empty. And tired.  
And she has a tournament tomorrow.  
“If you had to abort or keep a kid...what would you do?”  
Maddy pops her lips and reaches out to squeeze Cassie’s hand. “I think I’d keep it”, she says and squeezes her hand harder. “But I wouldn’t like-”, she looks into her eyes and then away, “-I wouldn’t bitch at anyone that wouldn’t.”  
Cassie nods. If she weren’t so worn out, she’s pretty sure she’d be crying right about now.  
“What about you?”  
She brushes her thumb over the side of Maddy’s index finger. “Abort.”  
There’s quiet for a few minutes. And then, “No bitching here”.  
Cassie curls in on her. Maddy reaches up the wall and presses the lightswitch, bathing them in darkness.  
When Cassie’s mom asks them if they want chicken or pizza, neither answers.


	2. 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Maddy's perspective.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Casmaddy would be a very complex relationship, and I would love to see it.

The thing about it is, in every way that matters, she and Cassie shouldn’t get along.

Maddy’s bold, expressive, bitchy, and Cassie’s shy, timid, awkward. To see the two together, you wouldn’t think they’d work better together than apart, but that’s just the way it is. Maybe it’s because there’s more to either of them than what people see on the surface: Maddy is more than the overly confident, superficial airhead than people make her out to be, and Cassie’s more than the sweet, innocent little bunny rabbit people want her to be. Whatever it is, they’re better friends than either girl would have suspected.

Although, to be fair, Cassie kinda loses the saint image when her asshole boyfriends start spreading her nudes, and Maddy loses her loses her Wicked Witch of the West stamp of approval once word gets out that Nate choked her. Maddy isn’t sure if the changes are better or worse, but she doesn’t really care. Because through it all, Cassie’s standing right there, at her side, always with an ear to listen, even if Maddy doesn’t want it.

She thinks Cassie gets it. Her boyfriends may not have ever hit her, but they do put her down; they make her feel bad; they make her feel like sex is the only thing anyone would ever want from her. So, bruises or no bruises, Maddy knows that Cassie can relate because at the end of the day, it’s not the bruises that hurt the most.

They don’t talk about it. Not even when Maddy comes over one night, pulls off her scarf, and just shows her neck, the recent and the fading colors tainting her skin. Maddy stands there, holding her eyes like she’s daring Cassie to pity her, to coddle her, and Cassie just returns the stare, unmoving, until Maddy averts her eyes and sits on her bed. 

“Did you study for that Chem test tomorrow”, Cassie asks softly, and they never talk about it.

She knows she could, just like Cassie knows she could always come to her. But that doesn’t change the fact that there are just some things they don’t talk about: her parents; Cassie’s dad; the end of her pageants; Cassie’s leaks. They trust each other more than anything, but that trust only goes so far.

It’s a weird relationship; complex, even. In some ways, they’re closer than she thinks any two people have a right to be, and, in others, she wishes they were more.

But then there are nights like this. Nights where the line between friendship and something more gets blurred and everything they do and don’t tell each other ceases to matter.

Maddy never tells anyone about these moments, when Cassie’s arms find themselves around her waist and her mouth finds Cassie’s lips and they slip beneath the covers and just hold each other and kiss each other and watch each other like they’re the only things that exist in this world. Partially because of those labels that, even now, after all this time, they’ve yet to shed, because they’d never understand something about two people they don’t understand. But mostly because Maddy doesn’t quite know what this is. Not really.

And the thing about it is, she doesn’t want to. Because she and Cassie have always been weird. This is just another kind of weird, a new weird. She doesn’t see the need to label it, and, when she and McKay break up and those moments become more and more often, the need lessens even further. 

She never tells Maddy to break it off with Nate, even when she sees Maddy flinching away from his touch or glaring at a new text from him. She holds her hand, kisses the skin between her neck and her shoulder, maybe, but she never makes her do anything, even when she probably should. And maybe that makes her a bad friend, or maybe it makes her a good friend, but who fucking cares? Because Cassie’s always there, she’s just there, and Maddy thinks that should count for something. In her heart, she knows it counts for something.

Nate questions her about it once. Says she and Cassie have a “freaky close” relationship and that he doesn’t like it. Maddy just rolls her eyes and retorts something about Cassie being like a sister to her. He doesn’t let up, though, not until Maddy says she feels sorry for Cassie and that she’s only friends with her out of pity.

Then she drives over to Cassie’s house, cuddles with her, and tells her he’s unbearably controlling. Cassie rolls her eyes, calls him an asshole, tells Maddy that she’s an independent woman that don’t need no man, all the right things, all the safe things, and Maddy holds her just a little bit tighter, and whispers, a rarity, “I hate him”. And Cassie whispers back, “I hate him, too”, another rarity, and the rest of the night passes in silence. 

She thinks about it. Breaking up with Nate. They’ve had their breaks before, but this time, this time, she really considers it. It makes her nervous, given that they’ve been together for so long, and she honestly can’t picture truly ridding herself of him. Then she thinks of what she’d be if she stayed, and it’s like, is there honestly anything worth salvaging? 

She knows what it is about Nate that attracts her. He’s handsome; he’s smart; he’s decent in bed. But moreso than anything, he does what she wants, he makes her feel wanted. Maddy likes knowing that he’d die and kill for her, it’s like a power trip, one that makes her feel as in control of her destiny as her pageants used to. Smile with your teeth, bat your eyes, say something sweet, and you get a prize. In this case, the prize is Nate, it’s always been Nate, but what if it’s something else now?

What if it’s someone else? Someone she doesn’t have to put on a show for. Someone she can just lie in bed with and bitch about cramps and midterms and whatever the fuck else comes to mind because they could literally just talk for hours and hours and hours.

“Go to sleep”, Cassie mumbles, pressing her face closer into Maddy’s stomach.

Maddy just runs her fingers through Cassie’s hair and stares up at the ceiling. “You ever think you’ll fall in love again”, she whispers, and her phone beeps from where it’s sat on her nightstand. She blinks back tears because she knows, even without looking, that it’s Nate, calling to check up on her. 

“I hope not”, Cassie murmurs sleepily. “But...probably, yeah.” She looks up at Maddy, blinks the sleep out of her eyes, and watches her. “You?”

Maddy squeezes her tighter and wraps her legs around her. “I hope so.”

Love. Love is a funny thing, she decides. Addictive, painful, maddening, but mostly funny. Most her life, she hasn’t wanted much of anything. And when the pageants came to an end, it seemed hard to really want to do anything.

Then she started watching movies, reading books. All romance, of course, and she realized it took a helluva lot of effort to be in love with someone. And it was a different kind of effort, unique, because it wasn’t like studying for a test or practicing lines or memorizing steps. It was deceit and performance and manipulation but also tender kisses on a carousel and sharing a jacket beneath a stormy sky and staying on the phone until dew drops began to form on spades of grass.

Ninth grade came and Maddy knew that above all else, above college and babies and a nine to five job, she wanted to love someone.

And she did. Not like Cassie but she loved all the same, with all her heart and body.

She just never realized that emotional effort could be as tolling as physical effort.

And that, when the guy you love’s an ass, they can often overlap.

It makes her think of her parents and of their love and how it ran dry in just ten years. Sometimes, she thinks of those Lifetime-esque movies where the dad beats on the mom and they both try to hide it from the kids. She knows it’s fucked up, but she watches those movies and wishes that were her family. At least then, they’d talk to each other. At least then, the house wouldn’t be so quiet that Maddy sometimes just screams to fill the void.

‘Course in that scenario, she wouldn’t be the only one screaming.

Regardless, she wishes they’d just talk to each other. Or at the very least, get a divorce so she doesn’t have to listen to all the silences in the house and stretch herself thin attempting to fill them.

“If I fall in love again”, Maddy whispers. “It’s gonna be for good. And it’s gonna  _ be  _ good. You know what I mean?”

Not good like with Nate or even those wackass John Green books. No, it’s gonna be the kind of love where you can kiss somebody without worrying if your breath smells like ass and not giving a shit if they can smell your fart or not. The kind where she won’t get random texts as three in the fucking morning about how her hair wasn’t on point this week, where she just show up looking like she just rolled out of bed and went and not get shit for it. 

“I hope you find it”, Cassie murmurs against her. 

Maddy purses her lips and narrows her eyes. “I will”, she says.

It’s a promise she intends to keep. 

**Author's Note:**

> There are so many good ships in this show 😭😭😭


End file.
